Disability Service Announcement: COVID-19

In this Disability Service Announcement episode of the Access Aisle, our hosts, Megan Wagner and Robbie Kopp, share information about social distancing and how to protect yourself, your family, and the community from COVID-19. The CDC, SC DHEC, State and Local Governments are the best sources for new information. 

Able South Carolina has a great listing of COVID-19 resources available here: https://www.able-sc.org/covid-19/

Disclaimer

Able South Carolina is providing this podcast as a public service, but it is neither a legal interpretation nor a statement of local, state, or federal legislation or policy. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Able South Carolina. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an Able South Carolina endorsement of them or any entity they represent. If you have any questions about this disclaimer, please contact our Director of Advocacy and Community Access at advocacy@able-sc.org

 

Episode Transcript

[music]

 00:15 Megan: It has been 10,865 days since the Americans with Disabilities Act has been passed.

 00:20 RK: And you are parked in the Access Aisle.

 [music]

 00:32 Megan: Welcome. My name is Megan and I am a current social work intern at Able South Carolina, studying to get my master's degree at the University of South Carolina. With me today is my amazing supervisor and mentor in disability advocacy, Robbie Kopp.

 00:46 RK: Thanks, Megan. Like she said, I'm Robbie Kopp, and I am the Director of Advocacy and Community Access here at Able South Carolina. We are here today to talk with you about COVID-19 and how to better prepare yourself as we see this thing roll out over the next few months.

 01:02 Megan: Well, I wish I could say we're in the homestretch of this Robbie, but it seems like everything is just getting started. So, to help all of our listeners sort of navigate this unprecedented pandemic, we have compiled a list of advice that is sent down from the CDC. Before we get into all that, though, I just wanted to take a second and say thank you to all the people out there working on the front lines to keep us safe: Healthcare workers, grocery store employees, garbage collectors, public service agents, and all of you hard working people giving their all so the rest of us can stay safe inside our homes. We cannot thank you enough.

 01:36 RK: And it's so important that all of us do our part to help relieve some of the workload for these dedicated workers and make sure that we are staying at home the way that we are ordered to and that we're limiting the spread. The fewer folks that this ends up touching, the less risk there's gonna be in the community.

 01:54 Megan: Right, and because there is no current vaccine or medical way to prevent someone from getting COVID-19, the CDC recommends that we all stay inside our house and away from other people until this is kind of all over. There still seems to be some confusion on what exactly social distancing is and is not. Robbie, could you tell us a little bit more about what social distancing is, what it means to do it, and who should be doing it?

 02:17 RK: For sure. And first, I really wanna start out by saying who social distancing is for. If you are not sick and you don't have any reason to believe that you've been exposed, you haven't been around someone who has symptoms, of COVID-19, then social distancing is for you. If you think there's any realistic chance that you may have gotten it, then this next part where we talk about social distancing doesn't really pertain to you because you should be completely quarantining or self-isolated. We will talk about what that means.

 

02:50 Megan: So Robbie, what if I have to leave my house? How should I protect myself from the people around me?

 02:54 RK: First, we should not be leaving the house at all unless we need to get supplies that that'll help us stay alive, not just, "I need a new pillow because this one is just not as comfortable as it was last week." But, "I need groceries, or I'm gonna go hungry." And there's a difference between those two. Some other things that have also been allowed so far is some limited outdoor travel on foot. If you're exercising or you're trying to get your cardio in, that has not been on its face banned yet, but we wanna make sure that we're always watching for the newest updates. Like I've said once in this podcast, so far, I'll probably say again, if you feel like you might be sick or you've been exposed to COVID, these steps aren't for you. Please stay inside and limit the spread.

 03:51 RK: The biggest feature of social distancing is keeping that six-foot distance between you and the next person near by. If you can keep more space between you and other grocery store shoppers or service workers, even better, but six feet is expected to be the distance that the virus can travel when someone sneezes, or coughs.

 04:09 RK: The current guidance from the CDC is recommending that people should wear a cloth mask at all times when they go out in public, like if they go to the grocery store. We should not be going out in public very much at all. This should just be very necessary trips, trips that we can't avoid. And when we take those trips we should make sure that we're doing everything we can to not need to repeat the trip the next day. With these cloth mask, they can be homemade, they can be made with things that you have around your house right now. The CDC's website has some really cool ways to put a mask together and please do not go out and buy the surgical masks or the medical grade masks because we wanna make sure that our health care workers have access to those. Fun fact, my aunt made a few masks for my wife and I, they're really cute and I hope to not need them because my wife and I will be staying in the house as much as possible. But when we do, we have something that is pretty simply stitched together with some cloth and some hair ties and that's all it really takes.

 05:14 Megan: I also want to add on to that, Robbie. It's really important that you, when you're using the mask that you wash your hands before and after you take the mask off and this just goes in general to outside of touching your mask, if you go out in public, you should be washing your hands frequently and not touching your eyes, nose, mouth, ears, that kind of stuff with unwashed hands.

 05:38 RK: Yeah, for sure and I think one of the things that's really interesting about what the CDC said most recently about masks, is that if, if you don't have any symptoms, you may still be carrying the virus and you may be able to transmit it. So, the mask helps you keep the virus contained to your face instead of spreading it to other people in the community. Other really important things to consider for people with disabilities is how your PCA is gonna provide services. Make sure that you work with your PCA provider, your personal care attendant provider and make sure that they have good COVID practices in place and that you're protecting yourself from individuals who are there to help you but may inadvertently be carrying the COVID virus.

 06:00 Megan: We're now gonna talk a little bit about if you are sick and what you should do, if you're experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, which tend to be fever, cough, or shortness of breath, do not go physically into your doctor's office. You should start by giving them a call and describing your symptoms to them and then going from there, we don't want to flood all the doctor's offices with people who think that they might have COVID, especially since we all know here in the South, it is allergy season and pollen is everywhere. So, we wanna make sure that the doctors can do that initial meeting with you over the phone before you go in.

 07:04 RK: Yeah, and then an important thing is really following the instructions of your doctor. It's always good to start with a phone call and to touch base and share what your symptoms are and go from there. Many people have been able to recover at home and don't need to go to the hospital at all and your doctor is really gonna be the best judge of that or you need to head to the hospital. If you have a hard time breathing, you feel pain in your chest or you're unable to think clearly or wake up or if you have blueish lips or face, the CDC recommends emergency medical health, making sure that you get dialed in to what you need.

 07:40 Megan: But, if you are in any of those situations, you can like Robbie said, recover from home. The CDC has some tips on what you can do to help prevent family members and other people in your house from getting sick too. You wanna tell us a little bit about those? Sorry.

 07:55 RK: Yeah, I'm just so excited to do it.

 07:57 Megan: I know. [chuckle]

 08:00 RK: If you find that someone in your household is sick, whether that's you or a family member or a roommate, you wanna designate a sick room that only the sick person stay in while the rest of the family and pets stay away. If you have a service animal, things don't really change a whole lot for you. You wanna keep that service animal with you at all times and make sure that you're the one who's making sure that service animal is let out when that's needed and being the main contact because there is some question about if someone is sick is touching an animal and then someone who is well touches that animal, can COVID pass. So, we wanna make sure that we're being really intentional with that, whether it's a service animal, whether it's other animals in the house or whether it's family members, we wanna make sure that there's a sick space and a well space and that we're not crossing over as much as can be helped.

 08:54 Megan: But if you're for whatever reason not able to create a sick space and a well space, then the CDC asks that you stay away from the other members in your family as much as possible, doing this... In your house, wearing a cloth mask. So, we talked earlier about if you're social distancing and you're not sick, wear a cloth masks only when you're outside. If you are sick and have to be around other people in your house, then wear a cloth mask inside as well, following all the stuff we talked about earlier with cloth mask usage. Try as much as possible and hopefully none at all to make physical contact with anyone and staying at least six feet away from the people in your house at all times.

 09:37 RK: Yeah, for sure. So there's kind of that direct exposure from the droplets of sneezes and coughs and how COVID can pass that way but it also can live for a short time on surfaces. So, we wanna make sure that any surfaces that are touched pretty often, like countertops, toilets, sinks, light switches, door handles, all of those things and more, we want to disinfect those regularly according to the best practice for that. There's a lot of different types of cleaners out there. You wanna follow the instructions on that cleaners' bottle. Some sprays may say spray it, let it sit for awhile. Some wipes may say, wipe it down and make sure that it's good and wet and covered and let it dry. Whatever you do, just follow the advice of that cleaner because it's tested to make sure that it does what we expect it to do.

 10:30 Megan: Also, if you're sick or somebody in your house is sick, again, I can't reiterate this enough. You wanna be washing your hands as much as you possibly can. So, I'm sure you've seen it everywhere, but we just wanna reiterate it here. Wash your hands with hot water and for at least 60 seconds, or 20 seconds, sorry, for at least 20 seconds or if you're bored of counting to 20, you could sing Happy Birthday two times. There's lots of stuff out there that lasts for 20 seconds that you could try to do to make hand washing more fun. But that's just a huge benefit of... Or not benefit, but it's a huge way of preventing yourself and other people from getting the virus is to keep your hands clean and to not touch your face with unwashed hands.

 11:17 RK: Absolutely, and Megan said "60 seconds". If you've got those 60 seconds...

 11:21 Megan: Do it.

 11:22 RK: And you're excited to wash your hands, don't stop at 20. But please, wash your hands at least 20 seconds. The last thing, I've said it a few times, but I'm gonna say it again, if you are sick, do not leave your house except to get medical treatment and that would be only under the guidance of your doctor. We wanna make sure that Coronavirus kind of stops dead in its tracks and that it's not spreading to other people, and the best way that we can do that is if you're waiting for results, for COVID test results or if you're unsure if you may have it, or if you've been in contact with someone who may have it, that self-isolation, that staying away from others and staying indoors is, it's important for your health, but even more important for the community's health and making sure that Covid doesn't spread and turn into an even bigger problem and a bigger strain on our resources, healthcare resources.

 12:21 Megan: Just to kind of piggyback off of that, too, before you stop quarantining, even if you start feeling better, your symptoms start improving, you wanna make sure to call your doctor and talk to them before you leave your house, even if you're feeling great and ready to go, you still could be carrying and you still could pass the virus on to someone else. So just make sure that every step you take is in collaboration with your doctor because they know the best way to navigate all of this. We know this is a scary time for a lot of people, a lot of people, this is the first, most of us, if not all of us have kind of dealt with anything sort of like this. We want you guys all to know that Able South Carolina is here to help. We are still working virtually to ensure that all of our consumers have access to the things they need right now. If you need help please, please give our offices a call, or you can go to our website at Able-SC.org/COVID-19. We have a bunch of accessible resources on there, specifically for COVID or you can use our website to look at the other services that we provide outside of COVID, as well.

 [music]

 13:44 RK: You have been parked in the Access Aisle, a production of Able South Carolina. Please like and share our content and subscribe for more updates.